It only took nine minutes for my suggestion that the Jets badly need Ron Hainsey to meet resistance in the twitter-sphere. In this case, the argument came from Mitch Kasprik (@WpgJetshocktalk), a writer for Hockey Talk and THW (The Hockey Writers) and a long-time WHL Scout. When he talks, I'm inclined to listen. He wrote:

@nhljetsnation contract is irrelevant, he was overpaid but not his fault, even if he made 1m, it's still Hainsey, I'd rather play a prospect

Garrett Hohl (@garretthohl) from Arctic Ice Hockey came to Hainsey's defence, citing very difficult role. I thought it would be fun (you heard me, tables are fun) to have a look at the other defencemen who had similar years to Hainsey. More twitter battle and numbers below the break.

Who compares to the great Ron Hainsey?!

Okay - so how good was he? I had to start with some rules. i've been staring at Hainsey's stats all day, so I just made up a little list of rules that I thought fit his assignment this season. They are a bit arbitrary in that regard, so I've listed them below. The stats I want to compare as 'outcome measures' of success are: 5x5 points per 60, first assist % (% of assists that were 1st assists), offensive zone start/finish differential (zone finish % - zone start %), and relative corsi. I want to know how good Hainsey was at pushing the puck toward the opposition's end compared to other players in similar circumstances.

Rules:

Rel Corsi Quality of Competition between 0.8 and 1.5

Offensive Zone starts <50%

5x5 TOI between 16 and 20 minutes a game

PK TOI over 2 minutes per game

Agreed? If not, leave your thoughts in the comments and I can adjust our parameters.

With those rules in mind, who fits the bill? It's a pretty big and varied group (organized by quality of comp).

So he's... not good? No, he's good? But not really?

I think it comes down to an issue of perspective with Hainsey. There are better defencemen out there, but of the 242 defencemen who played 10 or more games this year, Hainsey was among 21 who played a lot of hard minutes against top opposition while starting in their own end. In that 21, it seems he's in the middle of the pack for ability. But there are many ways to see that.

Kevin is a regular contributor to Jets Nation. His work has been featured on Bleacher Report, The Sporting News, and around the Nations Network. An enthusiastic over-analyst, his background and interests are diverse, but you might notice he's obsessed with hockey. Track him down on twitter @kevinmccart

Lots of discussion over at Flames Nation regarding the value of advanced stats and Corsi when discussing defensive defencemen.

I think it started with an article about how Anton Babchuk (the Flames' worst defender) had better advanced stats than Robyn Regehr (the Flames' best defender).

Even when Regehr was a Canadian Olympic calibre player, his Corsi numbers were unimpressive. And they are even worse this season, when he was getting first pairing minutes with the defending champions in the conference finals.

It doesn't look to me like shot counting is a good way to measure the contributions of defensive defencemen (which is how Hainsey was employed this season).

I think the answer probably lies somewhere in zone finishes, GA/60, and even simple TOI